Review of Counting the Cost

I didn’t really know much about the Duggar’s but since I love a cult story I watched the Shiny Happy People documentary this summer. The documentary shows how large and terrifying the religion is the family belongs to. Jill Duggar Dillard expands on it a bit in the book but a lot of the book deals with her time with their reality series they were on starting when she was a young girl. She details the impact it had on the family and in particular how her father was exerting even more control with the family. The children were filming many hours a week and were never paid. When Jill and her husband pushed back and tried to take some control over their lives and also get reimbursed for their previous work it didn’t go well with her father. As Jill started to renounce some of their religious teachings her estrangement with many members of her family and in particular her father began. Her father was definitely in it for the money and fame. I felt the documentary had a lot more detail on the religion overall and in the book Jill deals more with their family issues.

*Not really dealt with in the book - only very vaguely - was Jill’s husband’s transphobic comments a few years ago which is another problematic issue.